Broken
by xTimorousBeastie
Summary: It was only a matter of time before one of them broke, but they made sure to pack a lifetime in before then. Too bad happiness was never for them. Misery was.


Broken.

Series; Harry Potter

Characters; Sirius Black and Marlene Mckinnon-Blackinnon

Theme; "It was only a matter of time before one of them broke, but they made sure to pack a lifetime in before then. Too bad happiness was never for them. Misery was."

Standard disclaimer applied

They were so similar, the two of them no matter how one may deny. Both rowdy, both flirtatious, both caught snogging under the bleachers more often than faculty would ever care to admit. They were teenagers, drenched in youth and dripping with a fierce fearlessness that would always make others stop and stare at they walked on by.

They were beautiful, they were loyal and they were well on their way to being broken.

Smiles and winks hid their pain, the walls only lowering when they were alone together where no one could judge, no one could point and no one would ever attempt to fix. They were on the fast track to being too far gone and nothing anyone did would ever change that.

Dark make up smeared around her eyes like souless pits, blush stained lips and bruises along her hips and wrists. Perverse and dark and never quite sure if it was worth it.

Scratches crossing his back, half moons and gouges, a feral look in his eyes that will always remain until clothes are picked up, a floor is closed and one or another was left alone in their flat.

It was empty. It was flat and full of nothing but adverted gazes and awkward sounds in the midst of those standard feelings that come with their actions but they had made a pact to call upon each other rather than someone who might misinterpret things.

Everything was simple. She'd come up with schemes and rumors that'd have him apparating in her flat within moments- she was sick, she had fallen, she was injured, she was _dying_. Each time he made haste, even when the majority of his mind tried to convince him that it was only another of her sick games and she could last the time it took for him to drive. But there was always a nagging part of that same mind that said that this time could be real.

Everything was simple. All he had to do was pick up the phone and say a small handful of words or send her a certain glance and before he had time to fall deeper, his mind would be on something else. She knew that she was being simple, being easy but only in her body for that was all he'd ever get without a fight to the death.

Everything was simple. And then it wasn't.

He was falling quicker than she was. Distracting missions and events slowing down her descent. He had no such luck and every time she saw him he seemed further and further along the path to self destruction and she wanted to fun her hands through his hair, pull him close and murmur how he was so good, so bright, so much better than he'd ever know because he loved his friends with all he had and though he was well on his way to being broken he's never bring someone down with him but there was no way in hell she'd let him fall alone because corruption was a two way street.

He'd try to discourage her, push her away saying how she could be so much more but all she'd do was reply that anything she could do he could do to because she was a Mckinnon and they've proved their worth time and time again but he was a Black and he'd always have the world in his hands no matter how many times they were disowned.

Events like these had transpired over and over again and they always ended up the same, with them in each other's arm as they comforted each other in the only fashion they knew how but one night ended with her shoved hard into a wall as he screamed like a mad man, a mad man who had finally found the end of his rope and she slammed the door as she left, leaving him to his devices as he rode out whatever had left him so aggravated.

It lasted longer than she thought, longer than he thought, longer than anyone thought and in the time it took him to come out of it, he lost her.

She has a boyfriend now and the calls for him stop and his glances go unanswered but it doesn't last because before long he's being buried as another casualty for the cause and she all but falls of the face of the earth in her grief and he just can't stand it. He finds her in the shambles of her flat, amongst ruined books, torn pictures and upturned furniture and he can't help but wonder if she feels as broken as she looks. He goes to her but she wards him off, screaming and swearing when he tries to wrap his arms around her and kiss her, to do the only thing he knows how and the sunrise finds the two of them on the scratched floor. Her in his arms, his shirt still in the process of drying from her tears and his anguished cries still echoing in his ears. It's the first night where they are together to watch the days first light touch the world around them. It's the first night they've spent together where no clothes have been removed, but the end result is so much better.

It was only a matter of time before one of them fell so far that they couldn't be picked back up again and he thought it'd be him and she thought it'd be her but of course only one of them would be correct.

They were no longer teenagers. No longer the children who were never good enough at home but were golden in the eyes of their classmates. They were adults. They were fighters with war scars on their very souls like cracks on the pavement, on their very foundation. They had both given up trying so long ago and now they were fighting for their lives, their very beings from the devils of the time afraid to disappoint those around them even when a part of them knew that was exactly what was happening.

5 am phone calls, lips closing, tongues pressed to the insides of cheeks and a single motorcycle flying through the streets at night.

Leather gloves, red dresses and fingers like electricity meshing with whispers and smiles, never knowing the destination but it's the ride that counts right?

Somewhere along the line she fell in love with him. Her. The girl with the sad eyes, devils tongue and a penchant for gaudy, oversized costume jewelry. She fell in love with him. The boy with the wicked smile, granite heart and a touch that could melt butter.

It was like she was setting herself up for heartbreak but she didn't care because until that day they would both have the other at their very beck and call like a twisted game of follow the leader and it was better than nothing after all.

Track marks line the inside of their arms as they try their hardest to pack a lifetime into as much time as they have because they have long since accepted the fact that the chances of them living to a ripe old age was slim to none and she all but reveled in the fact that she would be young and beautiful in her coffin but every night she hoped that he would beat the odds. The would could handle one less confused girl with baggage that weighed more than she did but it needed more people like him.

She needed more of him.

It had started so that they could comfort each other, use each other during their descent but now she was clinging to him more and more, watching him from behind her safe line as if he was going to disappear, as if she were going to blink and miss him.

When had her self control gotten so good?

She wanted to do all the things that couples did. Hand holding, eyes meeting, hugging and smiles full of meaning and in public no less.

But they weren't a couple.

All she got was sharing a beer bottle, sloppy kisses, shags that meant less than nothing and more secrets than she ever thought possible.

But she wouldn't change it for the world.

And as they grew older their pact stayed strong under the cover of darkness away from prying eyes and people who would try to put a label on this thing that they had. Sick and twisted and sure to cause nothing but trouble in the long run, it was perfect to them and that was all that mattered.

But things started to get hard again like it always did for them. Things were picking up and they were away from home more often than not-away from each other more often than not as they dodged things thrown at them with the sole intention of killing them where they stood on opposite sides of the country if not the very ocean.

He made it through, coming home with nothing more than a scratch on his cheek but instead of the fanfare that he had expected; he encountered somber gazes as the lull between fights came into existence.

A particularly well flung attack landed her in a hospital bed, lucky to have her arm still attached to her body let alone her very life and every waking moment was filled with anger at herself for letting her guard down.

He had never seen her looking so frail, so innocent as she did right then, with no trace of make-up on her face and her wild hair contained in simple braids. Just barely twenty years old and already been through so much, and it wasn't just her. Their entire group was part of what seemed no more than a long winded suicide attempt but never had it seemed to apparent as the first time he had watched her sleeping form hooked up to machines and surrounded by a sour, sterile smell that no amount of flowers could cover up and night after night he sent everyone home but he stayed behind, sleeping in a chair be her bedside, her hand in his, just content to listen to her breath and made sounds he had never heard emerge from her mouth before.

He made sure to be gone by the time she awoke.

Why he spent the nights there he had no idea and he only wished he had an answer for the questioning gazes set upon him by his friends- their friends, but for the entire three months that she was there that became his routine and every morning she awoke to the sound of a motorbike peeling out of the parking lot every morning.

The damage was worse than anyone had expected and therapy was needed and he remained with her the entire time. She was teetering on the ledge now and she could see the sheer drop of it. It was farther than she thought and for the first time in her life she was terrifies and to take either a step forward or back seemed like much to hard a task but for some reason he held her hand throughout the entire time. Him. The man she had expected to ask that their pact be dissolved the very first time he had walked through the door to her hospital room.

But he stayed.

He truly stayed.

And they learned more about the other that wasn't about which spots to push to make them whine in the most delicious of ways, which alcohol they preferred and their choice of smokes.

It was marvelous.

But it wasn't them.

A week before the orders photo was set to be taken, she was released and there was cake and smiles and cheers but happiness was never for them. They simply weren't human enough at this point.

One night had them storming away from one another, more hurt- more angry than they have ever been before and midnight found him in the arms of another with his hands tangled in her hair and his eyes shut tight while the sunrise found her on the floor of her apartment, tears still falling as she clutched her heart as if she could catch the pieces as they fell. They couldn't come back from this. Not this time.

Happiness was too good for them, but misery was the perfect fit.

The next day she was gone, off on a mission she had asked for and just like that it seemed like she wasn't coming back.

Famous cities in her rear view mirror as she pranced about in all black like some spy in a big time movie. She toured the world as he toured bars and clubs and the insides of strangers rooms, never once staying the night.

And then one night the call came in and he left without a thought to the girl he was leaving unsatisfied. He faced faster than he ever had before, his mind to jumbled to think and the sight that awaited him was enough to make him keel over and shudder.

Red.

That was all he saw.

That was all he was able to see.

It was if he had placed rose tinted glasses on the moment he had crossed the threshold of the house in godrics hollow that lay right next door to his best friends childhood home. Only instead of making the world a better place, they made it worse.

Much worse.

He raced through the home, looking in rooms as the echoes and screams of events past squeezed in on him and the small group of other did the same.

Six bodies.

5 men, 1 woman with graying hair.

One woman with freshly dyed dark hair was missing.

They spent hours looking before he was sent home before he keeled over. He didn't even bother locking the door to his flat and he all but trudged inside, preparing to throw himself onto the couch but stopped when he noticed another body already there.

A body with freshly dyed black hair that was more red at this moment.

She looked as if she had been sleeping, waiting for him to come home.

They had tracked her there when she wasn't at her childhood home.

She had helped him time and time again. They has escaped the world together more often than either of them could count but the one time she needed him as much as he needed her he was off falling back into his old routine and he cried over the casket where she lay all in white as pain akin to that he's never felt racked through his body.

It was his fault.

He had been assigned the mission that had landed her on their hitlist.

It was his fault that he lost her.

That he lost the only girl that he had loved just as he figured it out and now it was too late.

It was only a matter of time before one of them fell so far that they couldn't be picked back up again and he thought it'd be him and she thought it'd be her but of course only one of them would be correct and the world lost a girl with a penchant for gaudy, oversized costume jewelry, dying her hair ever color under the sun, a smile that rivaled a supernova, sad eyes, a devils tongue and baggage that weighed more than she did.


End file.
